Your Results:

When psychologists speak of life-span development, they are referring to an approach that emphasizes:

A)

child development, specifically.

B)

humanity's historical development.

C)

only the periods of the human life span involving growth.

D)

the periods of the human life span involving both growth and decline.

2

Whether or not intellectual skills can still be improved through education for individuals in their 70s is a question of __________.

A)

normative age-graded influence

B)

plasticity

C)

multidirectionality

D)

normative life events

3

Developmental psychologists suggest that some characteristics develop and change over time. Which characteristic of development does this suggest?

A)

Development is contextual.

B)

Development is plastic.

C)

Development is studied by a number of disciplines.

D)

Development is multidirectional.

4

Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on an individual's life and are usually not applicable to many people are called __________.

A)

normative history-graded influences

B)

normative age-graded influences

C)

nonnormative life events

D)

none of these

5

Sociocultural contexts include five important concepts: context, culture, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender. Which of these five concepts could be defined as "the behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a particular group of people that are passed on from generation to generation"?

A)

context

B)

culture

C)

ethnicity

D)

none of these

6

Psychologists have learned that the ability to control one's environment can have a powerful effect on a person's health. They have also learned that poor health can influence intellectual functioning. This is an example of:

A)

a biological process.

B)

a cognitive process.

C)

a social process.

D)

the joint influence of biological and cognitive processes.

7

Which of the following is NOT an example of a cognitive process?

A)

an infant watching a colorful mobile swing above his crib

B)

an adolescent solving a crossword puzzle

C)

an infant's smile in response to her mother's touch

D)

a child memorizing a poem

8

Which of the following statements regarding developmentalists and their positions on the issues of nature–nurture, continuity–discontinuity, and stability–change is TRUE?

A)

Most developmentalists recognize that taking extreme positions on these issues is unwise.

B)

Developmentalists are in agreement regarding how strongly development is influenced by each of these factors.

C)

There is little debate among developmentalists on these issues.

D)

all of these

9

The process we refer to when we speak of changes in an individual's thought, intelligence, and language is the _________ process.

A)

cognitive

B)

socioemotional

C)

intellectual

D)

conceptual

10

The most important issues in the study of development include all of the following EXCEPT __________.

A)

nature and nurture

B)

continuity and discontinuity

C)

stability and change

D)

masculinity and femininity

11

Freud is associated with which theoretical perspective?

A)

psychoanalytic

B)

cognitive

C)

behavioral and social cognitive

D)

ecological

12

Which psychologist contended that "trust versus mistrust" is the first psychological stage?

A)

Jean Piaget

B)

Erik Erikson

C)

Sigmund Freud

D)

Lev Vygotsky

13

The criticisms of psychoanalytic theory include all of the following EXCEPT:

A)

the sexual underpinnings of development are given too much importance.

B)

the unconscious mind is given too much credit for influencing development.

C)

much of the data used to support its theories comes from individual's reconstruction of the past and are of unknown accuracy.

D)

there is skepticism about the pureness of Piaget's stages.

14

The theory that emphasizes that individuals manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it is called the _________ theory.

A)

situated and collaborative

B)

information-processing

C)

cognitive

D)

behaviorist

15

Which of the following is an assumption of Vygotsky's perspective on development?

A)

Children do not adapt their thinking to new ideas via the processes of assimilation and accommodation.

B)

Children's cognitive skills cannot be understood when they are only developmentally analyzed and interpreted.

C)

Cognitive skills are not mediated by words, language, and forms of discourse.

D)

Cognitive skills do not have their origins in social relations.

16

Who was the psychologist responsible for originating the theory of attachment?

A)

Konrad Lorenz

B)

John Bowlby

C)

Urie Bronfenbrenner

D)

none of these

17

__________ is to operant conditioning, as __________ is to social cognitive theory.

A)

Skinner; Bandura

B)

Skinner; Pavlov

C)

Pavlov; Watson

D)

Pavlov; Bandura

18

According to Bronfenbrenner's theory, the macrosystem is __________.

A)

the patterning of environmental events and transitions over the life course

B)

the culture in which individuals live

C)

involved when experiences in another social setting influence what the individual experiences in an immediate context

D)

the overarching system which includes all of these factors and more

19

Which type of research method involves an in-depth look at one individual?

A)

longitudinal approach

B)

case study

C)

experiment

D)

scientific method

20

Which research strategy simultaneously compares individuals of different ages?